The Gathering Storm (Crown of Stars 5)

“What of Berengaria?” Adelheid asked sharply, one hand stroking her crying daughter’s head. “Where is she?”

“She slept through the tremor, Your Majesty. Such things do not trouble her. She is still an infant.”

“Very well.” She wiped Mathilda’s tears away with her thumb and tipped her head up so that the girl looked up at her. “Should you like to go to the countryside, Tildie? Would you like to be a shepherd?”

Mathilda sniffed hard. At four, she had a face both more handsome and less pretty than Adelheid’s, and was already tall and strong for her age, brown-haired, snub-nosed, with an endearing dimple in her left cheek.

“I should like that, Mama!” she cried, her tears forgotten. “I would much rather run outside. I hate Darre! I hate it!”

She was a passionate child. Antonia smiled as Adelheid melted before her daughter’s fierce will, so like her own. Yet Mathilda possessed her father’s famous ability to rage outwardly whereas Adelheid held her feelings on a tighter rein, pulled tight, concealed behind a prettiness that disarmed her antagonists. Henry was stronger, but Adelheid more dangerous.

“You hate the hot summer air and the walls,” said Adelheid sternly, “not the city.”

“Yes, Mama,” said the girl meekly. “I love Darre. Just it’s so hot and stinky. I wish I could climb trees like we do in Tivura.”

“So be it.” Adelheid nodded at Antonia to show that she had accepted Antonia’s advice. “You and Berengaria will go to Tivura for the rest of the summer, until Octumbre at least.”

She clapped her hands, then stilled. “But what about you, Mama? Won’t you come with us?” Her lip trembled. Tears brimmed.

“I must stay in Darre until Octumbre. You know our duty is to rule. It will be your duty one day.”

“Yes, Mama.” She struggled and got the tears under control. At four, she already comprehended her destiny. “When will Papa come home?”

Adelheid glanced again over the city. “We must pray that the Lord and Lady grant him success very soon, and that he return swiftly. Go on, then. Go make ready. You will leave tomorrow.”

“Yes, Your Majesty’” said the nursemaid. She grunted and rose with some effort, wincing at the pain in her limbs. “Come, Your Highness. You must pick out which of your animals you wish to take with you.”

Adelheid kissed her daughter’s forehead and watched as she skipped out of the room, now holding onto her nursemaid’s hand and babbling happily about lambs and foals and how she absolutely must take all five of her whippet puppies.

“I am not sure you understand Aosta, Sister Antonia,” said Adelheid quietly once the doors had shut. She came back into the room and sat on a couch, took a cup of wine from a servant, and sipped. “This is not Wendar, where nobles rule and the common folk till the ground and pay their tithes to whichever lady commands them. The ‘rabble,’ as you call them, speak loudly in Darre, and if we ignore them, then they will rise against us. That is why I cannot leave, or leave Duke Burchard as regent, no matter how affectionately I admire him. The people have suffered much—the earthquake, two bad harvests, the shivering sickness. Many have fled to the countryside, but others from the country walk in rags to the city walls hoping to be given flour from my granary. I must feed them, or they will riot. They love me because I never deserted them, because I came back to save them from Ironhead. I will not desert them now.”

was no wind to cool them, but Adelheid endured the heat without wilting. These sweltering late summer days did not make her face mottle with unsightly red blotches, as it did Antonia’s; her complexion remained smooth and lovely. Her hair stayed neatly coifed under a linen scarf, held in place by a slender gold circlet that she wore at all times except for formal audiences, when she placed the heavy imperial crown on her own head. Sweat stippled her brow but otherwise she gave no sign in her silk robes of being hot, not as Antonia was.

“I don’t know …” she mused, still staring down at the city.

Voices called out in the hallway. The door into the chamber slammed open and a girl ran in, sobbing.

“Mama! Mama! Make the shaking stop, Mama! I’m scared!”

Adelheid turned as little Mathilda flung herself against her mother’s skirts and clung there, arms wrapped around her hips, shoulders heaving and shaking with far more violence than the tremor that had precipitated the girl’s outburst.

The nursemaid hurried in, accompanied by two guardsmen. She was an older woman, breathless from the run. Her bones popped and creaked as she knelt before the empress. “I pray pardon, Your Majesty. I let the princess run away from me.”

“What of Berengaria?” Adelheid asked sharply, one hand stroking her crying daughter’s head. “Where is she?”

“She slept through the tremor, Your Majesty. Such things do not trouble her. She is still an infant.”

“Very well.” She wiped Mathilda’s tears away with her thumb and tipped her head up so that the girl looked up at her. “Should you like to go to the countryside, Tildie? Would you like to be a shepherd?”

Mathilda sniffed hard. At four, she had a face both more handsome and less pretty than Adelheid’s, and was already tall and strong for her age, brown-haired, snub-nosed, with an endearing dimple in her left cheek.

“I should like that, Mama!” she cried, her tears forgotten. “I would much rather run outside. I hate Darre! I hate it!”

She was a passionate child. Antonia smiled as Adelheid melted before her daughter’s fierce will, so like her own. Yet Mathilda possessed her father’s famous ability to rage outwardly whereas Adelheid held her feelings on a tighter rein, pulled tight, concealed behind a prettiness that disarmed her antagonists. Henry was stronger, but Adelheid more dangerous.

“You hate the hot summer air and the walls,” said Adelheid sternly, “not the city.”

“Yes, Mama,” said the girl meekly. “I love Darre. Just it’s so hot and stinky. I wish I could climb trees like we do in Tivura.”